kerala should be renamed "k m mani/oommen chandy land". because after all they own most of it.
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From: Rama
| [ Usual suspects, usual victims. Suspects will surely escape the law using their community politicians like Oomen Chandy, KM Mani] Auction agency spreads stink of scam | |||
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| The culprit in the scam is the Cardamom Marketing Corporation, a premier global auction centre, which looted the money from more than 300 cardamom growers of Kerala and Tamil Nadu through unauthorised deposit mobilisation and money-lending. This amounted to about Rs 50 crore. Apart from the unauthorised financial deals, the auction centre also swindled more than Rs 20 crore from several nationalised banks, with the connivance of top banking officials. | |||
| The Cardamom Marketing Corporation (CMC) at Vandanmedu in Idukki, Kerala has been operating as an auction centre for the past 45 years, playing a pivotal role in controlling cardamom rates in the world spice market. Controversies started when the CMC management failed to return to the cardamom growers the deposits amounting to Rs 50 crore, collected illegally from them. | |||
| The fact is that the authorities have all along known that the CMS, licensed by the Spices Board to carry out auction processes, has been involved in illegal deposit mobilisation for the last many years. | |||
| "They used to pay us the promised interest at a rate of 18 percent on our deposits every three months. We had also taken loan from CMC at 24 percent rate of interest. But everything collapsed from August 2005," said a reputed planter, who lost more than Rs 3 crore. Most of the investors are now withdrawing from the complaint against the auction centre, obviously due to the difficulty they face to show the source of income. | |||
| Superintendent of Police Gopesh Agarwal told The Pioneer that the investigation was a very tedious job because of the non-cooperation of planters, who had deposited huge amounts with the CMC as they are unable to show the source of income. | |||
| "We are thinking of handing over the case to the Crime Branch. Only a few persons have lodged complaints. Nobody is coming out with proper documents, as the sums involved are running into crores of rupees," said Mr Agarwal. | |||
| Meanwhile, the CBI had conducted raids at the CMC office and seized documents. "It is a suo-moto case. We found great discrepancies in CMC accounts at certain banks. One of the big issues is cheating depositors. But at this stage, nothing can be said," said a CBI official. The CBI had found that the company had defaulted payment to the tune of more than Rs 5 crore at the local branch of the Union Bank of India. The source indicated that evidences of similar frauds were found in the ledgers of the branches of the Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank and the Canara Bank. Banking officials confirmed the CBI observation. | |||
| Depositors allege that the investigating agencies are trying to hush up the case due to the mounting pressure from various quarters. "The CBI raided the auction centre and the manager's residence. But it did not initiate any action against the president and treasurer of the auction centre. It raises a lot of doubts," said a depositor. | |||
| CMC president refused to discuss the issue, when contacted over phone. "I have nothing to comment. I don't know anything. I have not been going to the auction centre for (the last) many days," was all he would say before disconnecting the line. His brother and CMC treasurer Mathew Scaria was not available for comments. | |||
| The controversy came to light when some depositors lodged a petition with Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in December last. However, the State police failed to crack the scam, though they had summoned the management of CMC and the aggrieved depositors. | |||
| Auction activity is at a standstill due to the issue. The controlling body, Spices Board, which had received complaints recently, is limiting its investigation to the loss of money incurred by the cardamom farmers. "Our main action would be to settle the dues (of farmers). But if we got evidence on receipt of deposits and money-lending, which is an illegal activity by an auction centre, we would act," said Spices Board chairman CJ Jose. He added that it would reallocate the auction process to some other firms. | |||
| "We had produced all kinds of documents to prove that the CMC had illegally collected deposits and had involved in money-lending activity. But no proper action has been taken so far," said Arun Kottor, a cardamom grower who lost a good sum in deposits. | |||
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